I had a lesson at the Volunteer Center on Friday, just a couple blocks away from my main school, and I noticed a bunch of tables and booths going up on the lawn in front of the building. The advertising banner outside mentioned a hand crafts fair for that weekend, so I decided I'd swing by on my way to the school Saturday afternoon before my first lesson at 2 PM. I got to the Center at 1 PM, and all of the tables and booths were still unoccupied, and at first I couldn't figure out why. Then I realized the date on the banner was just for Sunday. A bit disappointed, I went inside to kill the time before I had to be at the school, by reading manga. But, it turned out that there was a bit of stuff going on there that was only obliquely related to the crafts fair.
First up was a talent and information presentation show. I arrived just as the first stage magician was finishing up, so I decided I'd take a few photos of the second magician for the blog. He started out with the "coins from the air" bit, and followed that up with "the reproducing sponge balls." He wasn't too bad, but those are pretty well-known routines, although the audience of mostly old people still seemed to be amazed at the schtick.
A nearby board in Kagoshima dialect, reading "nakoyoka hittobe," which in effect can be thought of as "let's get closer together by having fun together."
Across the hall from the stage was the "Second Kagoshima "Dialect Weekend" Festival." I didn't quite figure out what was going on here. Some of it seems to be information about the culture and traditions of some of the island towns in Kagoshima Prefecture, but some of it seemed to be related to Kagoshima-dialect, which is radically different from the rest of Japan (this dialect was specifically created to identify outsiders, usually government spies, during the Shogunate era of 1600 to about 1856 AD). A number of volunteers stood around, holding clipboards with quiz sheets. An educational weekend.
This table is promoting Tokunoshima (Toku Island).
Their primary cultural exports are the shamisen, skin hand drums, and Sony boomboxes.
Some people are bugged by tests.
One of the other tables had this model wooden boat, with packages of shochu, and a bunch of Saigo Takamoris. (Reminds me of the 3 sets of actors (Saigo, Okubo, and Oryo) the previous weekend.) The paper tacked in front of the boat discusses Gonza. There's really not a lot of information on the net, in English or Japanese, about Gonza, but he's something of a local legend. Born in Kagoshima in the 1700's, his father apparently intended to take him by ship to northern Europe, but the ship encountered a storm and was dashed on the rocks somewhere around the Russian coastline. One Russian tribe discovered the survivors and killed everyone but the young boy. Gonza grew up in Russia, creating the world's first Japanese-Russian dictionary (not an easy feat, given that he left Japan at age 5 or 10, or something, and didn't know that much Japanese at that time). He died in Russia at age 21. Coincidentally, the merchants in Tenmonkan, on Gonza Street, had a 300th year anniversary event on Sunday.
After looking at the tables in the Dialect Weekend Fest room, I returned to the main stage, where the second magician was starting his sponge ball illusion.
Amazing.
At 1:45 PM, I headed off for the school and taught lessons until 7 PM. At that point, there was nothing else going on, so I just went home for dinner. But, I now knew of 3 different things going on Sunday (a crafts fair at Amu Plaza, the Gonza Street anniversary party, and the outdoor crafts fair at the volunteer center). Yowza.
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